


Taste Tester

by Lord_of_Spirits_and_Bazongas



Category: Tales of Berseria
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 03:23:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20482040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lord_of_Spirits_and_Bazongas/pseuds/Lord_of_Spirits_and_Bazongas
Summary: Velvet still struggles with the fact that she has lost most of her senses. This makes things such as cooking notably harder for her. Luckily, a willing assistant comes to her to help her out.





	Taste Tester

Being a daemon meant different things for different people. Where Rokurou could still enjoy some of his former pleasures, such as drinking, for Velvet, life had given a much more cruel hand in turn. She had already come to terms with it all, yet time and time again, she was reminded of the fact that she wasn’t human in a way that stung her. More often than not, it was the smaller things that made Velvet hate her curse, and this morning seemed to be one of them.   
  
Walking downstairs towards the kitchen, Eleanor perked up when she heard someone yelling. Judging by the noises that followed, that person was also trashing the place. She easily recognized who was behind it all, as out of their crew of misfits and criminals, only one had a temper quite like Velvet did. Slowly opening up the door to get a peek inside, Eleanor coughed before speaking up, raising her voice a bit just so she would be heard over the noises of metal pots falling onto the ground.   
  
“Velvet, are you okay…?” Eleanor inquired. She knew it was a rhetorical question, as her reaction seemed to be far from a rational one. Slowly opening up the door, Eleanor still stood behind the door, waiting to see if Velvet had yet calmed down and came back to her senses.   
  
Rubbing at her forehead, Velvet sat down and sighed. Waving the former exorcist in, she pressed her back against a chair before wiping some of her long strands of thick, black hair away from her face. “Sorry, I just… I just had a bit of a moment, I suppose.”   
  
Looking around, Eleanor could tell that Velvet had been trying to cook something. It seemed to have a bit of a messy ending to say the least. Moving closer, Eleanor knelt down, lifting up her head to get a better look of Velvet’s tiresome expression. “Do you want to talk about it? I can help you clean this up at the very least, but I can also listen if you want to talk about it. I know that you don’t always like talking about your feelings, let alone to someone who used to be your enemy, but--”   
  
Shaking her head, Velvet shushed Eleanor by placing her index finger against her lips. Before she could speak her mind, Velvet continued: “I think I might just take you up on that offer. Let’s close the door first… I don’t want others to see this mess. I… I hope that we can keep this in between us, right? Can I count on you for that?”   
  
Eleanor pulled back ever so slightly before nodding. She had never been the gossiping type, not even back at the Abbey, so keeping a promise like this was as easy for her. “You have my word, Velvet.” Standing up, she turned around to the close the wooden door behind them before turning her attention back to the slightly taller woman.   
  
Taking another deep breath, Velvet stood up as well. Moving her way next to the counter she was cooking on, she grabbed a nearby book that was already open, and moved it towards Eleanor for her to take a look at. “I was trying to cook some cookies for Laphicet, to make up for that fight we had back when we went fishing, but since I can’t really taste anything, I couldn’t tell if they were any good or not. This might sound a bit weird, but at times I… forget some of the things I no longer can do. You would think that by now, after all those years, I’d be used to something like that, but then in the heat of the moment as I tried to taste test them, I just… lost it.”   
  
Glancing around, Eleanor could see bits and pieces of cookies all over the kitchen, ranging from crumbs to chunks. Looking at Velvet for a few seconds in silence, Eleanor eventually gave her a smile as an idea popped into her head. “I think I can help you out, Velvet,” Eleanor said as she clapped her hands together.   
  
Blinking a few times, Velvet raised one of her eyebrows while shifting her balance from one leg to another. “Oh?”   
  
Coughing a few times, Eleanor knelt down to pick up some of the cookie pieces from the ground. After dusting them off, she took a small bite out of one of them. Judging by the look on her face, they weren’t horrible, but something about them was also clearly a bit off. “I think that what you need is a taste tester. Since you’re not able to tell yourself if they taste good or not, why not let me help you out?”   
  
Pondering Eleanor’s proposal for a few seconds, soon Velvet was smiling too, be it faintly. Perhaps the day and her idea could be salvaged after all. “Hmm, so you’d be a taste tester of sorts, then?”   
  
“Yes, if that’s okay with you. I’m sure that your cooking can’t be that bad. I mean, these cookies you made were already decent enough, but I think you just had a bad ratio of certain ingredients, that’s all.”   
  
Velvet couldn’t help but to chuckle a bit. It was an odd sense of relief to know that, despite her anger and the fact that she lashed out, she hadn’t been that far off. It was moments like these that reminded her that just because she wasn’t or didn’t feel human anymore, that deep down she was still one. Even if she’d spend the rest of her life bearing this curse, no one could take away her memories of what it was like to feel and taste. “Thank you,” Velvet was quick to reply. “That is… a relieving thing to hear. At times, I can’t help but to think that maybe I’ve lost the few little things that help me believe there is still a bit of human left in me, so I hope you’re not saying such things just to make me happy,” Velvet smirked, teasing the easily flustered exorcist a bit.   
  
“You know that I would never do such a thing. I’m trying to unlearn some of the teachings that they tried to push onto us at the Abbey, yet I wouldn’t feel comfortable lying to you, not… anymore at least,” Eleanor mumbled in response.   
  
Shaking her head, Velvet gave Eleanor a short lived smirk. “You’ve already been forgiven for that. You were used by Artorius just like I was, so the last thing I want to do is to hold a grudge over that,” Velvet said. Turning her attention from Eleanor to the cook book in front of her, Velvet continued: “How about we focus on this now, though? I think that I could start making another batch of dough. Would you mind cleaning up a bit and then come and taste the dough for me when it’s ready?” Velvet asked, tilting her head a bit to the side to get a better look at Eleanor.   
  
“Yes, that sounds like a good plan to me. I’m sure Laphicet will be delighted by this,” Eleanor smirked back.   
  
Both of them were quick with their selected tasks. It didn’t take very long for Eleanor to clean the kitchen so that it looked like any sort of outburst hadn’t happened at all. Velvet was quick to mix flour, eggs, and sugar together. In the midst of sweeping the kitchen, Eleanor glanced at Velvet from time to time. Seeing someone she initially hated and was afraid of look so peaceful and genuinely happy made Eleanor feel a bit ashamed. It was true that Velvet hadn’t really given off the best first impression, but it was Eleanor too who had been quick to judge her just because she happened to be a daemon. She knew now that even daemons had feelings, just like humans did. Realizing that she had been staring at Velvet for a bit too long for comfort, she returned to sweeping, hoping that Velvet was too absorbed in her own work to notice her staring.   
  
“Eleanor, can you come here for a second?” Velvet asked, raising up one of her fingers to gesture for Eleanor to come over to her.   
  
Putting her broom against a wall, Eleanor did what was asked of her. Before she could ask Velvet what she wanted, she saw a wooden spoon with some fresh dough on it pointed right up against her face.   
  
“Go on, taste it. And be honest with me,” Velvet said. Feeling like teasing the exorcist a bit, she pushed the spoon forward just a tiny bit, booping Eleanor on her nose and leaving a tiny patch of that fresh dough on the tip of it.   
  
“Oh, o-okay,” Eleanor stuttered in response. Trying to take the spoon from Velvet’s hand, she realized that Velvet wasn’t letting go of it. Raising her gaze a bit, she saw Velvet smile back at her. It didn’t take long for her cheeks to catch a shade similar to her hair color, as she now had to grab Velvet by her wrist to get a taste of that dough. Opening up her mouth wide enough, she took the spoon into her mouth and cleaned up the dough from it. Pulling back a bit, she started to evaluate the taste of it, all the while Velvet watched her curiously, with one of her hands resting up against her hips and the other one twirling the spoon.   
  
“Well, how is it?” Velvet asked after a few seconds.   
  
Eleanor motioned for Velvet to wait a moment, as her mouth was still full. Gulping it all down, she gave Velvet a smile that seemed to hold the answer to her question. “It’s delicious. Maybe add just a tiny hint more sugar and vanilla extract to it to really bring out the flavor. You know how kids are, they really love sweet things.” Eleanor said, chuckling softly under her breath as she imagined just how happy Laphicet would be when they eventually finished baking.   
  
“I can certainly confirm that to be true,” Velvet said, joining Eleanor to chuckle with her even if only momentarily.   
  
“Oh, are you talking about your little brother…?” Eleanor asked as she grabbed a rag to clean up the tables.   
  
It took Velvet a moment to do or say anything, but eventually she did nod in response. “Yes, Laphi also had a bit of a sweet tooth. Celica often liked to bake him cookies given that he was so often sick and bedridden. My sister used to say that she didn’t mind doing it, if only just to see him smile and… I guess part of me wishes for that same thing.”   
  
Moving her way closer to Velvet, Eleanor put her hand on her shoulder before tilting her head. Once their eyes met, she gave her a bright smile. “I’m sure he will be delighted by this. Everyone fights sometimes, so you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. And besides, I’m sure this will work perfectly as a token of a truce.”   
  
Velvet took Eleanor’s words to heart, yet seeing that she still had that cookie dough on the tip of her nose made her snort. Grabbing a hold of her cheek, Velvet leaned in closer to lick it clean. “Sorry, you still had some dough there. Didn’t you notice?”   
  
Eleanor wasn’t in any state to come up with a sensible response to that, as just when she had started to get a hold of herself, Velvet reminded her just why she had been the reason for her bisexual awakening. Gasping under her breath, Eleanor turned her back to Velvet and pretended to go back to cleaning, even when her thoughts were now focusing on just about anything else other than that.   
  
Smirking and shaking her head, Velvet started to put the dough on a cookie sheet, shaping them into round shapes before pushing them inside the preheated oven.   
  
Before Eleanor could get too invested in finishing up with her cleaning, she heard Velvet cough for her attention. Turning around, she noticed that now she too had some cookie dough on her face, except she had it slightly underneath her nose, right in between it and her lips. Gulping, she stood still, nervously tugging at her rag while staring at Velvet.   
  
“Didn’t you say that you’d take care of the cleaning?” Velvet smirked. Taking a few steps forward, she closed the gap between them until they were close enough to almost feel each other’s breath against their skin. “It seems like I made a bit of a mess, being a careless daemon that I am. Care to help me out?”   
  
Eleanor had to do everything in her power to to squeak out then and there. Glancing around nervously as if to make sure the coast was clear, she took a deep breath before closing her eyes. Tiptoeing a bit given their height difference, she cleaned up the dough from Velvet’s upper lips with an awkward kiss.   
  
Stepping down, Eleanor felt like hiding her rosy cheeks from the smirking, taller woman standing right in front of her. She didn’t really know just where the two of them stood relationship wise, but she was more than certain now that whatever she felt towards Velvet wasn’t just one sided.   
  
“Is it… okay if I take one of those cookies as well…?” Eleanor inquired, taking a step back to get herself just a bit more personal space and breathing room.   
  
Smirking, Velvet nodded in agreement. “But of course. After all, they were made with love.”   
  
The second time around, Eleanor was unable to stop herself from squeaking.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as a part of Tales of Femslash 2019 event day 7 (Assorted Box of Chocolates - Free for all (ie. no prompt to follow), which can be found on both Tumblr (https://talesfemslashweek.tumblr.com/) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/TalesFslashWeek).
> 
> You can also find me at Twitter at https://twitter.com/lordofspiritsan  
If you have ideas, suggestions, feedback, comment, anything like that, feel free to contact me.


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